Observations of CHIRON by Denis Bergeron,
Val-des-bois, Quebec, Canada
(E-MAIL: bergeron@achilles.net)
Coordinates of my site:
LONGITUDE: 75¡ 36' 54 '' WEST LATITUDE: +45¡ 53' 41''
NORTH ALTITUDE: Around 550 feets
Night of January 29th, 1996
Hello dear friend astronomer,
This is my first report of observation about CHIRON in 1996. My astronomical
equipment is a Meade SCT LX-200 10'' F10 telescope with a telecompressor
lens to reduce my f/ratio to about F5.0 (FL: 51,6 inches) and a SBIG ST-6
CCD camera at prime focus. I also use a CCD SBIG ST-4 at prime focus of my
piggyback SCT telescope 4" F10 to autoguide my Meade.
All CCD pictures were exposed 5 minutes each. I had taken 31 exposures
during this session. My first exposure was taken on January 29th 1996
at 07h09 UT and my last one on January 29th at 10h30 UT. No filter was
used. The seeing was good. During this observation session, I have taken
4 dark frames of 5 minutes. In the end, I took a flat field image. The
following days, I averaged my dark frames and I calibrated (dark
subtract and FF corrected) all my pictures. With my software, I add up 31
images centered on CHIRON to show CHIRON alone (see CHIRON.JPG). I haven't
detected any evidence of COMA around CHIRON. I did ASTROMETRIC measurements
on Chiron with ASTROMETRICA software and here are my results:
Observations by Denis Bergeron.
MEADE SCT 10" F5.0 LX-200 + CCD, GSC reference stars (J2000.0).
CHIRON C1996 01 29.29991 12 48 53.51 -08 06 57.2 16.4 V 819
CHIRON C1996 01 29.33839 12 48 53.51 -08 06 57.1 16.5 V 819
CHIRON C1996 01 29.37525 12 48 53.48 -08 06 57.0 16.4 V 819
CHIRON C1996 01 29.41215 12 48 53.44 -08 06 56.7 16.4 V 819
CHIRON C1996 01 29.44441 12 48 53.42 -08 06 57.0 16.6 V 819
I use Chiron's ephemerides supplied by CPC. They are very
precise. If you wish to find Chiron easily, use software with the GUIDE STAR
CATALOG such MEGASTAR, THE SKY or others. Plot the position of Chiron on the
chart and try to identify stars in the area where Chiron is. Be patient!
Don't expose your images more than 10 minutes. I detect a slight shift in my
images. It's best to take many 5mn images and add them up to increase the
S/N. Be careful to don't saturate the pixels. If you have images of Chiron,
please prepare the best ones and send a copy of them to CPC and to Patrick
Vanouplines's home page in Belgium. I'm very interested to look at them. See
my others reports
Best regards